


Hiden Emotions

by Jen425



Series: Is [1]
Category: Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider Zero-One, Tokusatsu
Genre: Angst, Gen, Loneliness, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, past canonical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: Aruto quietly struggles with the aftermath of his actions and comes to perhaps the wrong conclusion.
Relationships: Hiden Aruto & Izu
Series: Is [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914109
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Hiden Emotions

**Author's Note:**

> There is an explanation for why I tagged Izu btw

Fuwa never did turn in resignation papers before he ran off, did he? Aruto thinks, sending another paycheck to the… he was running around helping people these days, right?

Aruto knows it’s an excuse, but footing the bill for someone who knew what they wanted is something right he can do, at least. It makes up for nothing, and he knows it’ll take time to rebuild his own and his company’s reputation, knows that beyond that there’s the simple fact that he had become the Ark to avenge Is and killed collateral (Jin, who this time had not deserved it) along the way.

But.

It’s something.

A Humagear datakey that says “error” when he tries to open it. Regrets and new promises.

A loneliness that feels unbearable and empty and utterly deserved.

Aruto sighs, noting the time as mildly late. 8:30 am or thereabouts. He can get more of this busywork done first. Especially taking advantage of the Zero-One Driver like this.

Working directly with ZEA like this, he can do the work without taking much time at all.

He’s trying not to abuse it too much. The headaches if he spends too long in ZEA are. Not comfortable. But being in ZEA like that, he can’t get distracted, and he…

He doesn’t have Is anymore, to keep him on task and to help. It’s a good thing he’s become. Mostly used to the work load?

  
  
  


(Headaches are a nice distraction from the continued heartache, actually.)

(And the nightmares which come from exposing yourself to pure human malice.)

(And the nightmares which come from watching the person you were closest to go up into flames.)

Eventually, though, he just can’t take any more. He leaves ZEA and finds himself back in his office. He’d been working all day, in ZEA.

It’s nearly 9 am, and he has a meeting with PR. He’s getting used to remembering things for himself.

After PR is a deal for 87 Humagears, and part of what Aruto’s had to do now is work with AIMS and the revived Metsubojinrai to prevent abuse, which has included having all three oversee any “large orders”.

…yeah, they’re still working on pushing the Actual Rights thing.

Aruto knows the people he could send himself, but he tries to always appear in person. On top of all of his other duties.

Nothing he can’t handle.

  
  
  


It’s a recycling facility. Or rather a series of them. Which is good, Hiden still needs more good press. The representative from both other organizations is Naki. Aruto walks beside them and one of the Humagears to be supplied (Midorecycler, he thinks) as the runner explains the facility. He’s grown used to this, and the questions and assurances are practically habit.

Then he hears the sound of breaking glass and freezes.

He can still feel it, the deep exhaustion he felt from transforming into Ark-One and the cause, every form of malice ever recorded assaulting his senses as he moved, forming that malice into attacks.

Unfortunately that’s left a trigger or two behind.

Naki is near him. He needs to get this under control quickly. No one else can know about this. They’d happen since Metal Cluster Hopper, after all. 

The only person who knew was…

Was Is.

Is.

Who’s gone now.

“President Hiden?”

Aruto blinks and finds the others ahead of him. He blinks.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Just a moment lost in thought. You were showing us to where you plan to give them a charging space?”

The others move on.

Aruto meanwhile tries very hard not to think about broken windows, gunshots, and other uses of broken glass bottles.

  
  
  


He goes back into ZEA that evening from home. He’s there for an hour in reality.

ZEA informs him that he has mentally been awake for fifty hours.

He still has more to do.

  
  
  


He falls asleep still in ZEA.

  
  
  


“Aruto-sama, please exit ZEA.”

Aruto blinks awake and immediately knows this is some kind of dream.

“Is.”

Her face is worried. He’d so rarely seen it worried. Had he really subjected her to watching him die over and over?

“ZEA will be forced to eject you soon,” Is says. “Please exit ZEA.”

“I’m tired,” Aruto admits, and Is smiles sadly.

“I know,” she says. “But you cannot adequately sleep here. Please exit ZEA.”

He’s pulled to standing without any energy to fight. Or any desire.

“Emergency exit will occur in one minute,” Is says. “Please, Aruto-sama.”

Aruto merely laughs.

“I’ve felt worse than an echo of being knocked out of my Rider suit,” he says. “Besides, this is a dream.”

“Aruto-sama…”

And then, in an act of supreme cosmic timing, Aruto wakes up from a forced exit.

…okay, that did hurt a little. Maybe he should get some real sleep…

  
  
  


(He’s too tired to remember that the reason he sometimes lets himself fall asleep in ZEA is that it prevents nightmares. Or dreams at all.)

  
  
  


[CAN NOT READ]

Aruto stares at the data key in his hand. He tries not to do this too often, it just leaves him…

Is is gone. Dead.

But sometimes over the past two months, he’s missed her desperately. She was the closest person to him for some time, really, and he’d…

(He’d tamed human malice in his grief for her.)

He just. He misses seeing her face, having a partner for his jokes. Knowing that she’d chosen him.

  
  
  


He’s late for a meeting.

It’s with an outsider, and Fukuzoe and Shesta are there too.

“Maybe you should reprogram your secretary,” the man says. Aruto hides his wince, smiling.

“I don’t currently have a secretary humagear,” he says. “Though they’re excellent partners, if you let them be.”

He tries to ignore the unsubtle worried look Fukuzoe aims at him. He mostly succeeds.

  
  
  


That night, he works in ZEA again, but with a different goal.

“ZEA,” he says. “Can you exactly copy the base model of [Secretary Is]?”

**Author's Note:**

> Izu’s coding is linked to ZEA enough that it managed to preserve some fragments. Not enough to fully revive her but enough that an echo still lives within ZEA. She doesn’t particularly want Aruto to know about her remnant, which is why she didn’t deny Aruto was dreaming


End file.
